featured – The continuously increasing number of ICOs has taken the general public entirely by surprise, and even the seasoned regulators of the world seemed to be quite flabbergasted by their abundance. Considering the risk of scams or just failed investments in an honest project, the entire business can arguably be best described now as a wild west, which is full of gold rush diggers, train robbers, and charlatans offering magic cures for every malady there is.

This chaotic world has probably prompted Wings, a prediction market DAO, to roll out their functionality. Instead of trying to defeat the chaos, Wings seeks to harness it and fight uncertainty with uncertainty. Their approach to sorting ICOs out looks quite unique and might be one of the best answers towards the pleads of crypto investors. In this feature, we’ll take a closer look at the idea behind the project.

What Is Wings?

Technically speaking, Wings allows ICO-holding projects to present their agendas to the general public to evaluate them and predict how successful the projects will be. Wings users estimate such features as the general idea for the project, the feasibility of their roadmap, the marketing campaign, and so forth.

Most importantly for the projects, the community assesses the amount of money a startup can potentially raise. This enables project teams to amend their financial goals if necessary, and evaluate the community’s interest in their offer.

How Does Wings Work?

This mechanism offers quite a great incentive for both projects and the community. Thus, if the prediction turns out to be correct, the forecasters get their rewards from the projects. The project, on the other hand, receives a competent evaluation by a core group of its target audience and therefore knows if anything is wrong.

From the organizational point of view, Wings is a DAO, which means that it uses smart contracts for self-governance, as well as to evaluate and manage the submitted projects. Every new project gets its prediction market that covers nearly every important aspect of its operation.

A Wings user can be either a project or a forecaster. A project has to provide all the necessary information, such as marketing materials, documentation, initial governance model (direct or liquid DAO governance), roadmap milestones, and so forth. Most importantly, the project can set up the token supply and the rules for its distribution amongst the forecasters. For that listing, Wings charges a fee from the project’s team in the platform’s native tokens.

The forecasters, who also have those native tokens, use them to vote for the very acceptance of the project to the listing. In case it is listed, they make their predictions during the so-called “forecasting period,” and when it’s over, the proposal gets activated on the platform. Only then the project may launch its actual ICO. If it goes as forecasted, the funds are distributed under a set of specifically created smart contracts on the platform.

Is Wings Model Feasible Itself?

The question of this model’s workability is all but unreasonable. For now, there have been over 30 projects listed on Wings, and their cumulative results are quite impressive: in 2017 alone, they have raised almost $430 million, so from the financial standpoint the model is entirely feasible.

Back in the day, Wings has held their own successful ICO as well. Their ERC-20 tokens were premined, and 75% of them were sold over the campaign raising almost $2 million. The remaining 25% went to form the Wings Foundation, which is the governing organization for the ecosystem, as well as to reward the team, advisors, and referrals, and to establish a bounty program budget.

However, the team sees its mission in creating a broad ecosystem that would enable the community to sieve through good and essential projects while leaving all scams and stillborn ideas on the curb. Considering the continuing ambiguity of the regulatory climate for ICOs, this model could eventually evolve into a self-regulating mechanism that would reward good projects and the community while keeping all dishonest players away without the need for any complex legal frameworks.

The need for such a system for the cryptocurrency industry has been evident for years now (think Mt.Gox or any recent scam ICO). Meanwhile, t search for a trustless and efficient solution that would not be clad in red tape and constant government intrusion at the same time continues. Is Wings’ solution the one? It could be, but, as always, only time can tell.

Since its inception, EOS has come under criticism. Most often, this is directed at the network’s dependence on small groups, which critics believe make EOS too centralized. For example, the EOS token supply is dominated by whales, with 69% of all tokens owned by just 100 addresses.

Under the EOS DPoS consensus model, there are just 21 block producers (BPs) responsible for running the network. However, many people don’t realize that out of those 21 block producers; only five are currently running full history nodes. These nodes are the only ones which allow dApp developers to query the entire history of the EOS blockchain.

The remaining BPs are running nodes with only a partial history of the blockchain. While partial history is sufficient for around 80% of EOS transactions, the other 20% require a full history query.

The Price of Running a Full History Node

EOS is many, many times faster than other blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum, running at thousands of transactions per second, in contrast to five or six. This high throughput means that EOS has already processed many more transactions over its lifetime, which at less than one year is considerably shorter than either Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Therefore, due to many more transactions taking place, the EOS blockchain is much more memory intensive than Bitcoin or Ethereum. It requires EOS full history nodes to process several terabytes of data at a time, compared with Bitcoin which was still under 200 GB at the start of 2019.

For a BP to run a full history node, they have to pay for the computing resources needed to process this volume of data. As EOS continually handles new transactions, the problem will only get worse as the blockchain grows in size.

Changing History

Furthermore, EOS introduced a change to the history plugin in November 2018. According to block producer EOS42, this change doubled the RAM needed to operate the plugin. Costs of running a full history node climbed up to around $30k, leading to the current situation where there are now just five full history nodes.

Block producer Cypherglass explained in a video how the EOS network could continue to operate without these nodes. A full history node only provides an access layer dApp developers to query the full history – it’s not physically holding one of the only copies of the full history. However, as things stand today, dApps currently running on EOS use only these five nodes as a means of querying the full blockchain history.

These nodes get no extra compensation or other incentives for continuing to operate the history plugin. If only one of them drops out, then the risk becomes even more significant. With the same workload split between just four full history nodes, the costs will rise even higher. Therefore, the EOS community needs to find a way to alleviate the pressure on these five nodes.

Is There A Solution?

The good news is that solutions are already starting to emerge. One is LiquidApps, which has now launched its DAPP Network, offering tools and utilities designed to attract dApp developers to the EOS network.

One of the first use cases of the DAPP Network is vRAM. Whereas a BP needs actual RAM to run its node, EOS operates on its own version of RAM. A dApp developer wanting to launch on the EOS network must buy EOS RAM – or state storage – up front. The price of EOS RAM is determined by supply and demand, and the cost for developers can be prohibitively high.

LiquidApps vRAM is compatible with EOS RAM and sourced from a decentralized network of DAPP Service Providers (DSPs). A DSP can be any entity or individual, as long as they meet the minimum requirements for becoming an EOS BP.

Once they’re set up on the DAPP Network, a DSP can package up vRAM as they wish, and sell it to EOS dApp developers for DAPP tokens. However, the DSP role could do much more than that. An existing full history node could become a DSP on the DAPP Network, offering dApp developers the ability to query the full history of the EOS blockchain as part of its service packages.

The DAPP token provides an economic incentive to run the full history node, as the DSP could request staked DAPP tokens for any developer using the full history feature. The financial incentive could also attract other entities to becoming DSP’s offering the full history service, hence reducing the burden on the few. This would increase redundancy, leveraging the benefits of decentralization.

Other Workarounds

Developers are also working on other solutions. For example, EOS Canada, one of the five BPs currently running a full history node, offers the DFuse service. DFuse is a closed source solution but provides developers the service option to plug into a full history service on an as-needed basis.

Block.One, the company behind EOS, is developing another fix called the MongoDB plugin. However, this has some limitations compared to the history plugin. It doesn’t allow external users to query the blockchain, and there have been issues with various updates.

EOS developers are also working on various other solutions to the full history problem. However, the LiquidApps solution has unique potential. The promise of economic incentives for becoming a full history DSP plays to the reasons for becoming a block producer in the first place. Offering full history queries as a service could soon be a profitable enterprise, which would be a game-changer for the full history problem.

Mt. Gox is in possession of over 141,000 Bitcoin and more than 142,000 Bitcoin Cash. Does this mean that users will finally get their funds back five years later?

Mt. Gox Hodling Funds Worth Over Half a Billion Dollars

Ever since the industry was rocked by the collapse of its biggest cryptocurrency exchange in 2014, it’s been a long and painful waiting period for users out of pocket.

Thieves stole some 850,000 BTC (then the equivalent of around $450 million, but worth billions today). While some of the funds have been returned, the majority of users are still waiting. And waiting, and waiting…

2014 to today is light years in the cryosphere and a series of events have since passed.

And more recently, it emerged that Karpeles will likely avoid a lengthier time in the slammer by serving a four-year suspended sentence.

But finally, the moment everyone has been waiting for: According to a report published by the Mt. Gox trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, the exchange still has over 141,000 BTC and 142,000 BCH. Nobuaki Kobayashi is entrusted with returning these funds to the users.

Will Mt. Gox Victims Finally Be Compensated?

The report caused a flurry of excitement on the internet, with tweets claiming that the decision to return all these funds had been made.

However, without getting too far into the weeds of a poorly translated Japanese legal document, while Mt. Gox may have almost 70 billion yen ($631,965,561 USD) or over half a billion dollar’s worth of BTC and BCH, the liabilities will likely be far more.

Further documents speak about how users will be notified if their claim for funds is approved or rejected based on whether they filed online or via email. The trustee says:

In a few days, the Rehabilitation Trustee will make the results of approval or disapproval of Exchange-Related Rehabilitation Claims available to Users who filed their Exchange-Related Rehabilitation Claims

For those who missed the 10/22/2018 deadline for submitting claims, they’ll need to download a claims form here. However:

Whether proofs of rehabilitation claims filed after the deadline will be accepted is determined by the court

Does this mean that all Mt. Gox users will finally get their funds back? Of course. In the same world in which the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause exist.

One excited user on Reddit said that he received an email with the good news that his claim was approved. However, the criteria for approval or denial is unclear, judging by the Reddit users in the comments who said their claims were refused.

When Will the Funds Be Returned to the Lucky Users?

If you’re one of the Mt. Gox victims who spent an excruciating five years waiting, you’ve probably been called many things. “Lucky” isn’t usually one of them, but there could be good news coming your way… The question now is, when?

The emails coming out of Nobuaki Kobayashi haven’t been too specific, with users being told:

I will contact you in due course

However, sifting through the Japanese Legalese documents posted on the Mt. Gox website, it would seem the earliest funds can be expected around May.

This, of course, would be very good news for Mt. Gox users. However, the entire space is waiting to find out whether the release of the Mt. Gox bitcoins will impact the market and if the released coins will actually increase the amount in circulation.

Call me cynical, though, but after so much time has passed, this author won’t be holding her breath.

When do you think the Mt. Gox coins will finally be distributed to the creditors? Share your thoughts below!

Since our recent price analysis, where we have mentioned the triangle that was forming on the 4-hour chart, we did receive a Bitcoin breakout. However, to the pessimistic surprise, BTC broke up the triangle formation.

The breakout granted the coin the immediate target of previous resistance at $4050. This resistance was tested recently, just three days ago, and over the recent hours, BTC is consolidating around that level.

So the question is whether or not Bitcoin can maintain its value above the $4K mark. However, the issue should be not the $4k, rather targeting the critical $4200 area. Despite getting closer to it, Bitcoin couldn’t overcome the $4200 resistance mark since December 3rd, 2018.

This will be the fourth time Bitcoin will be facing the critical level. The $4200 is the (first) real test above the $4K. A breakout and the bulls can see $5K closer than ever.

Total Market Cap: $141.7 Billion

BTC Dominance: 50.8%

Looking at the 1-day & 4-hour charts

– Support/Resistance: As mentioned above, Bitcoin is now facing the $4050 resistance mark. A break-up and the next target will be the $4100 resistance, before the critical level of $4200. Further above are the $4400 and $4500 levels before the daily chart’s 200-days moving average line (marked in light green), which as of now hovering lies around $4750.
From below, the closest support is the resistance-turned-support area at $3930 – $3950, beneath are the $3850 and $3800 support levels, before reaching the $3700 zone which includes the 50 and 100 days moving average lines (on the daily chart).

– The daily chart’s RSI level: Following our previous BTC analysis, the 60 RSI level had supported the Bitcoin’s daily chart. As of now, the RSI seems strong around the bullish territories. Even though a correction should be reached sooner or later, this is healthy.

– The daily trading volume: We’ve pointed out that the green volume candles are much higher than the red ones, something that could tell on accumulation. However, we do need to see much more volume that will prove that the buyers are back.

– BitFinex open short positions: The short positions have decreased to 21.5K BTC open positions.

Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey has revealed a major scheme to pay developers to build out the Bitcoin ecosystem with open source technology.

Dorsey Plans To ‘Give Back’ To Open Source

In a move which underscored the tech mogul’s appreciation of both cryptocurrency and freely accessible innovation, Dorsey said he will hire “3-4 crypto engineers and 1 designer” to contribute to crypto full time – and pay them in BTC.

The new staff will be loosely tied to payments gateway Square, which now has eighteen months’ experience in handling Bitcoin transactions.

Unlike the existing crypto-related projects at the company, however, the new developers will not have the goal of creating new products for Square specifically.

“This will be Square’s first open source initiative independent of our business objectives,” Dorsey explained in a series of tweets March 20.

These folks will focus entirely on what’s best for the crypto community and individual economic empowerment, not on Square’s commercial interests. All resulting work will be open and free.

#BitcoinTwitter and #CryptoTwitter! Square is hiring 3-4 crypto engineers and 1 designer to work full-time on open source contributions to the bitcoin/crypto ecosystem. Work from anywhere, report directly to me, and we can even pay you in bitcoin! Introducing @SqCrypto. Why?

Square Crypto Is Born

He added his inspiration for the idea did come from Square’s crypto team, specifically Mike Brock, who told him building out the wider ecosystem would be “most impactful thing [Square] could do for the bitcoin community.”

“Square has taken a lot from the open source community to get us here. We haven’t given enough back,” Dorsey continued.

This is a small way to give back, and one that’s aligned with our broader interests: a more accessible global financial system for the internet.

The work will take place under a new entity dubbed ‘Square Crypto,’ which already features its own Twitter page and sports Bitcoin’s Latin motto, ‘vires in numeris.’

The announcement has received praise from online commentators.

“This is how open-source development should work,” writes Bitcoin Twitter personality WhalePanda. “Successful companies contributing to open-source software that their company is build on. Sadly most companies don’t do this. Great example of why no one needs an ICO/premine/founders rewards. Thanks jack.”

Twitter, Square And Bitcoin Integration

As Bitcoinist reported, Dorsey has taken a progressively more pro-Bitcoin stance in public forums since the start of 2019.

After previously predicting Bitcoin would become something of a de facto internet currency within just 10 years, the executive surprised many when he became involved in the Lightning Network in February.

Following his participation in the Lightning Torch transaction relay, Dorsey began to discuss the technology and its potential future at both Twitter and Square.

The appearance of Lightning at both companies, he implied, was a matter of “not ‘if,’ but ‘when.’”

At the time, he likewise queried what would be the most efficient manner to expand the profile of Bitcoin in particular, having hinted elsewhere that altcoins were not a priority for him.

“I love this technology and community,” he continued Wednesday.

I’ve found it to be deeply principled, purpose-driven, edgy, and…really weird. Just like the early internet! I’m excited to get to learn more directly.

The rubric for applicants hoping to apply for the new developer positions simply consists of “currently contributing to bitcoin-core or other crypto ecosystem projects for free.”

An Indian crypto exchange has launched a program that allows its users to earn interest on their cryptocurrencies held at the exchange. Initially, users can lend BTC, USDT, BNB, XRP, and ETH. The CEO of the exchange has shared details about this new offering with news.Bitcoin.com.

Lending Cryptocurrencies

Coindcx announced Thursday that its crypto lending program called Dcxlend has come out of the beta testing phase and is now fully launched. Five cryptocurrencies are supported: BTC, USDT, ETH, XRP, and BNB.

The exchange detailed that there are “three lending term lengths: 7 days, 15 days, and 30 days. The interest rate varies dynamically and goes up to a maximum of 2%, according to market dynamics — demand and supply.” Furthermore, its website states that “the cryptocurrencies lent through Dcxlend will be used to provide leverage to users on Dcxmargin,” another service the exchange offers.

Gupta shared with news.Bitcoin.com that during the beta testing period with just BTC and USDT, “we had roughly 120 lenders which led to a circulation of 170 BTC on a daily basis.” Claiming that the program has recently garnered more attention from lenders, he remarked, “Hence we’re scaling it up and will keep on adding more coins.”

The CEO explained that his exchange has an internal settlement and liquidation mechanism for margin trading which does not have “a dedicated funding wallet,” elaborating:

Funds are then lent to the users only when the margin trade is open, with no withdrawal access and hard liquidation with 7.5% maintenance margin.

Similar Programs Worldwide

In the U.S., Blockfi recently introduced a savings account that enables customers to earn 6.2 percent annually on their BTC and ETH. Meanwhile, regulated bitcoin derivatives exchange and clearinghouse Ledgerx has a program called Ledgersavings which allows clients to earn an implied rate of around 16 percent annually.

In Japan, regulated exchange GMO Coin launched a lending program for BTC, BCH, ETH, LTC, and XRP last year. However, at the time of this writing, the exchange is only borrowing BTC but customers can lend between 10 and 500 BTC over 181 days and earn up to an annual rate of 5 percent.

Recently-licensed Japanese exchange Coincheck, which was hacked in January last year, also has a lending program for BTC with a maximum annual rate of 5 percent. Prior to the hack, this service supported 12 cryptocurrencies.

Bitbank, another regulated Japanese exchange, also offers up to 5 percent interest annually for users lending between 1 and 25 BTC. Besides BTC, the exchange plans to extend the offer to BCH, ETH, LTC, XRP, and MONA.

Would you lend your cryptocurrencies to an exchange? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Disclaimer: Bitcoin.com does not endorse or support claims made by any parties in this article. None of the information in this article is intended as investment advice, as an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or as a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

How to get bitcoin without having to give up your personal information? The best way is probably good old fashioned work – earning it.

Ways And Means

We tend to like our Bitcoin decentralized, anonymous, and peer-to-peer. After all, wasn’t that sort of… the whole point? So why do most people acquire it through centralized, third-party exchanges who demand to know our identity? There is another way, of course. We can earn it.

A new post on the BTCPay Server Blog, details a number of ways to accept bitcoin payments. Among the noted benefits of receiving BTC as payment is the power of self-sovereignty. Plus, a knock on benefit to the entire ecosystem comes when a bitcoin earner goes on to spend those earnings.

People getting paid in BTC, have no other choice than to spend it from time to time, helping other merchants in the ecosystem stack sats, organically distributing sats all over the world.

Naturally, the focus of the original post is on using BTCPay Server, but the principles also apply to other means.

Invoice In Bitcoin

As a freelancer or small business owner you may want to accept BTC for the products or services you provide. However you may want to initially agree prices in a fiat currency, to allow for any fluctuation in bitcoin price 00.

You could just stick your wallet address on the invoice and rely on the client to calculate the exchange rate at point of payment. Or you could use a new BTCPay feature called Payment Requests.

A ‘Payment Request’ is a time-sensitive, customised invoice page, sent as a simple URL. Exchange rates update automatically, and clients can choose when to pay; perhaps in instalments, using Lightning Network or even multiple tokens.

Shopping Around

There are many options for accepting bitcoin for goods in either an e-commerce or bricks and mortar store. Many popular e-commerce platforms, such as WooCommerce, have plugins available to easily incorporate bitcoin payments.

And physical stores also have a number of bitcoin-enabled point-of-sale apps available, from the simple to the all-encompassing.

Pay For My Genius

As a creator of unbridled genius, your content deserves to be paid for, right? You may choose to locate your work behind a paywall, or rely on the general public to recognise the value of your talent by tipping. Either way, there are several solutions available, such as those we mentioned in our recent Lightning Apps article.

Or perhaps your expertise is in the field of coding, marketing, or selling Bitcoin projects to the masses. The number of opportunities for employment within the wider cryptocurrency industry, has continued to grow, throughout the crypto-winter. From innovative start-ups to established players in the field, many crypto-companies compensate employees either in-part or entirely in cryptocurrency.

Maybe you are the innovator? You see a need, a niche, an opportunity, which is just so momentous it would be a travesty were it not to see the light of day. Depending on the scale, you could crowdfund it in BTC (again BTCPay server has options for this), or even launch an ICO/STO. Some of those tokens you raise need to pay your wages.

No Skills Required

Of course, now that you’re earning all these lovely bitcoin, the only thing you really need to worry about is how to spend it.

But if your very particular set of skills can’t be turned any of these options, don’t worry. There are still methods to get hold of bitcoin without going through KYC, such as using some Bitcoin ATMs or buying bitcoin vouchers as we pointed out back in January.

https://dailybitcoinreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/bitcoin-300x59.png00Bitcoinisthttps://dailybitcoinreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/bitcoin-300x59.pngBitcoinist2019-03-21 03:02:402019-03-21 03:02:40How to Get Bitcoin Without Giving Up Your Privacy – Earn It

Following a January 2019 hack that cost them millions of dollars, Cryptopia has relaunched on March 19, 2019, With 40 Trading pairs. The History of the Hack In January 2019, Cryptopia experienced one of the first crypto exchange hacks of the year which led to the loss of millions of dollars and a second hack

According to a Bloomberg article published March 18, 2019, tech giant IBM has been approached by at least two “major U.S. banks” regarding the creation of a private digital currency on the heels of JP Morgan’s JPM Coin. More Banks to Follow JP Morgan? 2019 has often been touted as the year of stablecoins, and

According to a March 18, 2019, working paper published by former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Timothy Massad, the large gap in crypto-regulations in the U.S. has led to continual frauds and weak investor protection in the budding cryptocurrency ecosystem. Lack of Regulations a Menace for the Industry Regulations and compliance in the cryptospace